Braised Bean Curd with Minced Pork or Chicken (红烧豆腐)

This can be made vegetarian by replacing meat with mushrooms, and using vegetarian oyster sauce or mushroom sauce.

Ingredients

1. 1 block soft bean curd
2. 150g-200g minced pork or chicken
3. 2 clove of garlic
4. ½ tablespoon dark soya (optional)
5. 1 ½ tablespoon light soya
6. 1 ½ tablespoon oyster sauce or mushroom sauce
7. ½ tablespoon sugar
8. ½ cup water
9. 2 tablespoon cooking oil
10. ½ cup water
11. 1 teaspoon corn flour

I personally like to use the organic tofu (bean curd) of the brand “Unicurd”.  It is really nice and soft. (see http://www.unicurd.com.sg/product_OrganicTofu.asp).  Mushroom sauce taste like oyster sauce and usually the bottle will call it vegetarian oyster sauce.  There are 3 methods to cook this, and I personally like the 1st, less messy kitchen as frying tofu usually get oil splashing.

Method 1

1. Mix soya sauce and oyster sauce, sugar, water in a cup or bowl with ½ cup water.  Add in corn flour and dissolve.  (The trick to prevent the flour forming lumps is allowing the flour to slowly get wet and sink to the bottom, then start stirring).
2. Peel and chop the garlic.  Cut the soft tofu into smaller cubes of about 1 inch by 1 inch approximately.
3. Heat up frying pan, wok, or a shallow pot.  Add oil.
4. Add garlic and fry till fragrant.  Add in minced meat and keep pressing and stirring till it cooks and breaks into small pieces. Fry till the moisture is dried up and pour in the gravy.  Cooks till thickens.
5. Add in the tofu and allow it to boil for 3 mins. Do not stir too much as it breaks the tofu.  
6. Serve hot.

Method 2

1. Exactly same as Method 1, except between step 3 and step 4, add in the following step.
2. Add oil and heat up till very hot.  Slowly slide in the tofu and allow it to fry the surface.  Don’t need to fry all surface, just get some surface scalded brown to get some fragrant of fried tofu.  Do not to stir it too hard as it breaks the tofu. Push tofu to a side to scoop into a plate. 
3. Method 1 step 4 continues.

Method 3

1. Exactly same as Method 1, except deep fry the tofu till golden brown on the outside, hence leaving a layer of skin (which is fried tofu) wrapping the tofu.  To do this, the oil has to be very hot.